There is trouble in the fight against sport fraud: The world anti-doping agency Wada is disturbed by a new anti-doping law in the USA, which is intended to give US investigators the opportunity to investigate international networks abroad. The US Congress is planning this because – not wrongly – it sees the Wada as too lax in the fight against doping. How the cut in Wada subsidies, which was also discussed in Congress, is now to counteract this laxity is unclear.
The anti-doping world is in turmoil. It should actually be for completely different reasons. Because in many sports you can continue to dope, but the clarification rate is in the lower percentage range. Dopers are only caught where there is a solid determination. Take weight lifting, for example: when the 2015 World Cup took place in the USA and the competition controls were not carried out by the Hungarian home agency of the permanent president Tamas Ajan, who had meanwhile been shot due to corruption, but by the host’s anti-doping agency, there were 24 positive cases. The President of the US anti-doping agency Usada, Travis, Tygart charged the cover-up of a further 40 cases to the World Federation of Lifters.
Because dopers are often caught when the Usada chief sets his investigators on the march – think of Lance Armstrong, the Balco affair and Nike’s Oregon project in athletics – twelve senators in Washington have introduced an anti-doping law , which will give US investigators a free hand in future also for doping offenses abroad. Up to ten years in prison and a million dollar fine can result in convicted perpetrators.
In the justification for the draft law, the Washington Office for National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) does not spare criticism against Wada: incompetent, non-transparent, ineffective – this can be summarized. Usada chief Tygart calls the report dryly “a heavy, but perfectly accurate description of Wada’s performance and failure to protect clean athletes.” Jim Walden, attorney for the doping leniency Grigori Rodschenkow, after whom the new law is named, and who was involved in drafting the draft, said to the Washington Post: “Everything in the ONDCP report is not surprising for people who are familiar with the topics «.
Walden and Tygart can be confidently agreed. The Wada was recently limited to the administration of the anti-doping fight. In the scandal of Russian state doping, half of the authorities, led by politicians and half by sports officials, attracted attention by taking a sneaking course. Even Hungarian Heber President Ajan was on the Wada Foundation Board until 2018, he was even a founding member. A certain inefficiency of the Wada was desired by at least one of its founders, one can assume.
It is piquant that the sender of the critical Wada report, ONDCP director James Carroll, sits on the board of the agency. Neither he nor former Wada officials from the United States have been noticed by harsh criticism within the Board of Trustees. The sudden change of heart fits well into the major political situation. The Trump administration also wants to leave other international organizations such as WHO and Unesco and is threatening to withdraw money. This poisons criticism of the Wada and makes it part of a political maneuver.
The threat of the money would hit the Wada severely. The United States contributes $ 2.7 million annually to the $ 37.4 million Wada budget. Because the IOC would once again counter-fund all states’ contributions, which would support half of the entire Wada budget, a failure would even tear a hole of $ 5.4 million.
Wada President Witold Banka then “regrets” the report and points out his organization’s reform efforts. On nd request, Wada is particularly concerned that US law may overlap in international law and may endanger the security of whistleblowers.
The National Anti-Doping Agency (Nada) of Germany maintains its own position in this dispute. Although she is critical of the impending withdrawal of money, she also welcomes the efforts to introduce a sharp anti-doping law in the United States. “This increases the protection of clean athletes and whistleblowers,” Nada told “nd”. With regard to the application of US laws also beyond national borders, she argues cautiously: »In order to ensure that anti-doping work is as uniform as possible internationally, it is important to discuss the legal consequences of the so-called Rodshenkov Act in detail before the international anti-doping committees come into force and to determine possible cooperation models at an early stage. «
That sounds constructive after taking advantage of the opportunities that the law can offer in the detection of international doping networks. If it cost other Wada officials the job – before Heber boss Ajan, biathlon patron Anders Besseberg (Norway) had to vacate the Foundation Board due to corruption and doping cover-up – it would only be in the spirit of clean sport.
.
